St. Mary's Catholic Center | St. John Paul II Student Center

College Station, Texas

As one of the largest Catholic campus ministries in the country, St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M University has experienced steady and impressive growth since its 1998 Student Center was added to replace an older 1950s facility built shortly before the church building. Steady staff growth and an increase in the number and participation of ministries has stretched the current building – activity space is too small to accommodate many large events and on-campus student reteats; meeting space is often difficult to reserve; an adjacent office building is being used to house the development staff. The need for additional meeting, activity, and office space was apparent.

Following a successful phase-one capital campaign to grow the Student Center’s facilities, St. Mary's engaged JGA to explore the option of expanding the existing buildings in lieu of pursuing a previously-imagined free-standing facility to free up additional property for future development. The ~20,000 SF St. John Paul II Student Center addition and roughly ~5,000 SF of renovation to the existing facility will provide:

A new administrative / business development office suite

5 new medium and large meeting rooms

A new 5,500 SF Event Center with access to the existing kitchen

Renovation of an under-utilized library to create an open reading area with study rooms

Conversion of an existing multi-purpose space into a new central reception lobby

Conversion of the existing reception lobby to a coffee bar to serve the student lounge

Completion of the Northgate District pedestrian street frontage elements

Upgraded utilities infrastructure and a new central chiller to serve the entire campus

Construction is slated to begin in the summer of 2017 and be complete in the fall of 2018.